SOLAR: A MELTDOWN

artist talk after the performance on November 3rd moderated by Christoph Gurk (Münchner Kammerspiele)

English with German supertitles

»GIVE US BACK OUR VOICE«

In SOLAR: A MELTDOWN Ho Rui An dwells on the theme in art and film history of colonialists plagued by the sun. This lecture is carried by a tremendous narrative talent and supplemented by videos and photographs, and its starting point is a key moment at Tropenmuseum (the ethnographic museum) in Amsterdam, where Ho Rui An discovers the figure of the anthropologist Charles Le Roux as a perspiring, white body. The encounter with solar radiation becomes a factor of universal equality – if it weren’t for the sphere of sheltered, shady domesticity granted to the colonialists as a protective barrier privilege. The white woman as housekeeper, as well as the punkah wallah, a servant whose duty is to be a manual fan operator, become decisive pillars of the white man’s global triumphal procession, who could not exist without these protective techniques.

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Cast

By and with Ho Rui An Dramaturgy Tang Fu Kuen Production & Technical management ARTFACTORY German translations Lilian-Astrid Geese

Biography

Ho Rui An is an artist and writer who works on the interface between contemporary art, cinema, performance, and theory. He is interested in images and their creation in the context of globalization structures and power structures. His works are shown internationally, for example, at the Second Kochi-Muziris Biennale; TPAM Performing Arts Meeting in Yokohama; Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin; Hessel Museum of Art; Serpentine Galleries in London; and many, many more. Ho Rui An is an editor at the journal ArtAsiaPacific. He lives and works in Singapore.

Production and realization

With thanks to National Arts Council Singapore Commissioned by 2nd Kochi-Muziris Biennale Execution in cooperation with scene/asia – Art Commons Tokyo Funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation Funded by the General Project Funding of the German Federal Cultural Foundation as part of GIVE US BACK OUR VOICE